Tracking the Light

Having decided to get married on a Friday at the top of the city, and being two people who are completely mesmerized by the city lights, Mr. FW and I didn't even have to talk with one another about what time of day to have our ceremony.  We knew it would be an evening ceremony, after work and after sunset.  We were even more sure about this when we visited our site last November to take some pictures of the space after dark.  On that night, it was jet black outside - a completely cloudless and fogless evening, and there was the most incredible full moon visible through the windows of our ceremony space.  I'm sorry to say that I don't have photographic documentation of that, so you'll just have to believe me that it was gorgeous.

In order to be absolutely certain about the lighting conditions on our wedding day, I consulted http://www.timeanddate.com/ to get the lowdown on sundown for November 11, 2011 in San Francisco.

screenshot taken from here

At this point you may be thinking what I was thinking: "What's the difference between astronomical, nautical, and civil twilight, what do they have to do with sunset, and how do they impact my wedding?"  Well folks, I'm here to answer that question for you in as brief and painless a way as possible.  And I promise that, if you're having an evening wedding or an early morning, you do care about this information..

(Note: I am summarizing this from several sources, but primarily here.  I am in no way an expert on this issue, so please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.)

Astronomical Twilight:  The beginning and end of light during the day.  Faint stars, galaxies, and other objects begin to disappear as this phase starts and they reappear as this phase ends.  The end of astronomical twilight would be prime city lights-viewing conditions.  

Nautical Twilight:  The middle of the full sunrise/sunset process.  Bright objects are visible in the sky, as is the horizon.  It is too dark to do activities outside without extra lighting, but some light remains.  Not the ideal light-gazing opportunity, but not impossible.

Civil Twilight:  During this phase the sky is illuminated and you will not need additional lighting for outdoor activities.  In the evening, only bright lights will be visible.  Good enough to see a full moon, but not good enough to take advantage of all the city lights.

photo via yimg.com

Sunrise:  When the upper part of the sun becomes visible.

photo via Esquire.com

Sunset:  When the sun disappears below the horizon.

photo via intrepid.com

As all of us already know, light becomes visible before the sun has actually risen above the horizon line in the morning, and light remains visible after the sun falls below the horizon in the evening.  Thus it's not that helpful to look only at sunrise and sunset times if you're interested in gauging the amount of light you'll see in the early morning or late evening.

And now comes the part where I super excitedly tell you the good news about our wedding day.  If you study the chart above you'll see that on 11.11.11 astronomical twilight ends at 6:32 p.m.  Purely by chance, we slated our wedding ceremony to begin at...  6:30 p.m.!  Yay for prime nighttime darkness!  Crazily enough though, if you take a closer look at that chart, you'll also see that daylight savings time ends A MERE 5 DAYS before our wedding date.  So if we had picked a date only a week earlier, then a half hour ceremony beginning at 6:30 would've meant that it would just be getting dusky outside (end of civil twilight, going into nautical twilight) and we would have completely missed out on that city lights look we love so much.

Clearly the stars were aligned for us (astronomical pun intended).  Oh, you don't believe me?  You want proof?  I'll give you proof.

{November 11, 2011...  Full. Freakin'. Moon.}

image via Moon Connection

Bam!  There's your proof.  I know I'm more than bit biased, but I'm pretty sure we have the absolutely awesomest wedding date and time ever, and I dare you to deny it.  :-)

How have the stars aligned for you and your significant other?  And do you have a need to track the light for your wedding day?

The History of Us

If I'm going to write about our wedding planning process, then it only seems right to start with a brief history of my not-so-brief relationship with my amazing fiance (a.k.a. "lovemuffin," "muffintop," just plain "muffin," or the least embarassing pet name - "love").

In the beginning, there was a cat...


{Halloween 2005}

On the night Mr. FW and I first got together (I believe we called it "hooking up" at the time.  Am I showing my age there?  Do the kids still use that term?)  this is what I looked like.  Unfortunately I don't have pictures of his Hugh Hefner costume, but suffice it to say that we were an interesting pair!  Our getting together came as a complete surprise to me because we'd been friends for several months at that point.  I thought we'd been on a few "real" dates, but apparently he was unaware of this.  (I mean, come on!  You picked me up and took me to dinner.  I asked you to take off your overshirt so I could see your tattoos.  I was all cuted-up in my favoritest clothes.  Ugh... Whatevs, I'm over it.)

After a few months, it was clear there was some staying power to the relationship.  Don't we look happy?

I was in grad school at the time and he was a senior in college.  Part of graduate training for a psychologist is to complete a year-long internship, and often you have to move to find a position that fits your needs.  So around the 1-year mark, we had to have some tough conversations about what would happen if our relationship became long-distance and whether our relationship was serious enough to move (and move-in) together.  



{SF Pride}

{at a friend's wedding}

Luckily I was placed with an internship that would allow us to move an hour outside of San Francisco, and I would commute to my internship while Mr. FW commuted to grad school (he ended up going to the same grad school as I did!). 



{Ferris Wheels on the far right, accompanied by wedding party members - yay!}



Pretty soon I had graduated,

{that's Doctor Ferris Wheel, to you}

we had purchased a little postage-stamp of a home (our first home!) in San Francisco,



{postage stamp located on the front half of the top floor}

and had settled down with our pack in the the city that we love!   

{Patches and Eli}

Clearly we were making significant commitments to each other even though the engagement wouldn't happen for another 2 years.  We don't consider ourselves traditional AT ALL, so this "out of order" relationship history of buying a home together long before we were engaged is perfectly, blissfully fitting for us.

Of course, like any story, there's always more to tell - and I will, don't worry!  But I'll leave it here for now. 

Did anyone else do things "out of order" like we did?